YouTube Could Become Content Creators Best Partner

Content Insider #610 – Content Utopia

By Miles Weston

“Look, talent comes everywhere, but
having something to say and a way to say it so that people listen to it, that’s
a whole other bag. And unless you get out and you try to do it, you’ll never
know.” – Jack, “A Star is
Born,” Warner Bros., 2018

We
don’t understand why folks waste their time watching 80 (O.K. 90+) percent of
the stuff that’s on YouTube.

Nope
we’re not much interested in:

PewDiePie’s
channel

Logan
Paul’s foibles

KSI’s
expanding ventures

While
these guys (and thousands of other folks) are pulling out all the stops to keep
their 10-50+million viewers. a
seven-year-old attracts 26B views for his Toys Review channel and pulled down $22M.

All
our kid is interested in is creating and sharing music with a big bunch of
friends around the globe.

Makes
us wonder where we went wrong.

But
looking back and second-guessing yourself is a sure way to get run over today.

Remember
back in 2006 when Google spent a mind-boggling $1.65B for YouTube?

Well,
a couple of guys (who are no longer there) thought Verizon could leapfrog
YouTube by dropping $6.4B to combine AOL and Yahoo and make a killer home for
video makers/viewers.

The
problem was that the 4+ billion folks on the planet, 3.1 B social media users
and 5.1B mobile device users didn’t quite agree.

So,
Verizon brought in Hans Vestberg from Ericsson who knows more than a little
about what is required to build tomorrow’s 5G wireless infrastructure. One that
the content world (producers, packagers, consumers) will need and be willing to
pay for for a long, long time.

As
we’ve seen in recent years, people are fickle.

Different
age groups like different stuff at different times of the day and in different
formats.

Variety – Different age groups gravitate to different content
and they view it in different ways. As a
result, content developers and marketers can plan and target messages based on
viewing habits.

Vestberg
looked over the content landscape and realized if you’re a media person you’re
constantly investing in developing the next great thing that people will tell
other people about, so you can add subscribers. If you’re lucky, you may even
win a few awards and statuettes along the way to put on your shelf.

Under the Radar – Often looked down on by content creators and
distributors, YouTube has a broad potential audience from around the world with
different viewing habits.

The
content investment crowd – also known as FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon,
Netflix, Google) and BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) – focus most of their
attention on getting people to ditch their appointment TV habits and switch to
anytime, anyplace, any device viewing.

Netflix,
which presently dominates the professional digital media, has nearly 120
million subscribers in 190 countries.

With
over 100 million members of its growing inventory of Prime service content, Amazon
isn’t far behind. Of course, Bezos
sweetens the offer by giving people fast (sometimes free) shipping of stuff
from his store.

CBS,
Hulu, Disney and others are competing now, or will very shortly, for your
digital entertainment dollars.

According
to Allan McLennan, CEO of PADEM Media
Group,
a lot of people in the M&E industry like to point to the growth of the new
IP (internet protocol) services as the reason for the erosion of
appointment-TV.

“The
overall industry has been struggling to navigate the opportunities being
presented,” McLennan commented. “It’s true that the content landscape is rapidly changing,
but that is for the good of the industry not to its demise.”

Audience Transition – Younger people who were born being entertained by
whimsical and non-scripted content easily spend more of their time with YouTube
content while boomers quickly click on traditional TV.

“It is unsettling to people who set their
clocks by their TV schedule (boomers plus),” he continued, “but it has also
never been better because now we have truly a tremendous choice of content and
viewing options via OTT (over the top), Amazon Prime, Apple TV, IP streaming
services and democratized content distribution.”

Four out of five Gen Z and younger Millennials
get their news on social media

Small Big Screen – Smartphone and mobile device users not only have their
units with them all the time, they are increasingly using them to watch
content.

“What’s really happening,” McLennan
added, “is that consumers of all ages are, as the old saying goes, having their
cake and eating it too.”

The
bigger and higher- resolution screens on today’s smartphones enable (encourage)
consumers to regularly use their phones to view video content.

Don’t Call – Mobile device voice traffic has remained flat for
years while data content and increasingly streaming video is growing at a
healthy rate. Streaming content has had
the most dramatic impact on the rapid rise.

In
addition, the growth in availability and popularity of “unlimited” data plans
make the use of smartphones for video streaming more feasible.

In
2020, when 5G service is standard in most urban areas, the time users spend on
their mobile devices will only increase, reducing the time spent watching the
big monitor on the wall.

It will simply be a matter of
convenience.

Open Door Policy – YouTube management quickly realized that their
audience didn’t want and wouldn’t pay for streaming content no matter how good
it was. For the global user base, free
meant free and they would “pay” by viewing ads.

The
mobile move opens the door to for YouTube to become a more serious location for
people to impulsively go first for their content.

While
Susan Wojcicki, YouTube CEO; tried the Netflix, Hulu and Amazon subscription
route with YouTube Red, it proved to be “less than” successful.

Mobile Choice – In many regions of the world TV sets, computers and
tablets are out of reach for most consumers so, the smartphone becomes their
all-in-one communication device, including streaming video.

Wojcicki,
who took over YouTube after heading up Google’s ad arm, probably should have
ignored what the up-and-comer streamers were doing and focused on their roots
and strength.

YouTube
has historically been a free platform, and once a brand is established, it’s extremely
difficult to change your identity.

Folks
are used to YouTube being free, so it is more strategic for them to focus on
their strengths – depth, breadth,
diversity – and do more to enable serious content producers by expanding their
viewing and monetization opportunities.

To
strengthen their global content plans, international YouTube now has 90
localized versions, across 80 languages and their YouTube Go app is available
in 130 countries.

According
to a recent Pew Research study, there are indications YouTube is moving to
become a bona fide entertainment network.

They
have quietly shifted their recommendation system to promote lengthy videos and
reward (provide added visibility) to channels based on watch hours.

To
have a stronger appeal to marketers, the company is also working with trusted
third-party vendors to assist brand suitability so that content owners maximize
their earning potential and marketers are assured their promotion appears with
consumer-friendly content.

Free
(ad supported) content provides a new global opportunity for professional content
developers/owners to reach a much broader potential viewing audience and be
properly compensated/rewarded for their work.

By
cleaning up and monitoring its platform, YouTube can present a strong case for
providing a “safe haven” for serious professional content developers/producers
across a wide range of genre to reach their audiences quickly and
economically.

Then,
it will be up to YouTube’s algorithms and the content consuming public.

In
addition to viewer habit, YouTube also provides a major advantage over
subscription content services – breadth of catalog!

Movies,
TV shows and original content are only a portion of the video material that is
available (and consumed) on YouTube.

Whether you’re interested in daily U.S. talk shows, Indian or other country
contest shows, Mexican or British comedy shows/series, French or Argentinian
documentaries, Japanese or Australian dramas, streaming government press
conferences or just about any content from anywhere YouTube can deliver.

In
other words, Netflix and Amazon and 100 other OTT services are not fighting one
entity in YouTube, they are competing with millions of content creators.

All
YouTube has to do is concentrate on their job. From the consumer’s perspective,
they can produce solid results for everyone involved…including YouTube.

Wojcicki,
her team and content creators/producers need to remember what Jack said in A
Star is Born, “All you got is you
and what you have to say to people and they are listening right now, and they are
not going to be listening forever.”